PROJECTS
CENTRAL ASIA

VILLAGE IDENTITY AND STATE INFLUENCE IN BUDDHIST CENTRAL ASIA
(1) Elke Studer | Races for the Gods. Byang thang ’char can rta rgyug.
(2) Hilde Schäffler | Ethnological Knowledge, Objects and Colonial Power.
(3) Guntram Hazod | Historical Maps of Central Tibet.
(4) Walter Probstler | Cultural History of the Buryats in Northeastern Mongolia.
(5) Stephan Kloos | Tibetan Medicine among the Buddhist Dards of Ladakh.


 
GUNTRAM HAZOD | HISTORICAL MAPS OF CENTRAL TIBET
  
Cartographic documentation is an important component of historical and social anthropological research. High definition satellite photographs, which are now widely available to the public, formed the foundation of this project by Guntram Hazod. Through the use of various computer programs these maps allow a new perspective on the region, in particular the relationship between topography and history. From 2002 to 2006, the author worked with a number of detailed satellite maps (in collaboration with scholars at the Institute for Central Asian Studies at the University of Leipzig) for a project on the early and medieval history and politics of Central Tibet.
 

The Lhasa Valley and the toponymies of the "Lhasa Mandala Zone" (Example of a satellite map from the book "Rulers on the Celestial Plain" [Per K. Sørensen and G. Hazod]. Photo: Corona Satellite 1970)
 
These maps assisted in the documentation of a historical-geographical project on the identification and location of historical toponyms. The identifications were conducted through several investigations at the sites, cross-referenced and enriched by data from written sources. In addition to the GPS data obtained in the field, the researchers also used the valuable new publications of place name catalogs containing coordinates that have been produced by Chinese scholars and published through Chinese institutions.
 
Guntram Hazod incorporated this cartographic documentation into a publication on the history of medieval Tibet, which was completed in 2006, as well as a paper in the series of the Commission for Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. (Per K. Sørensen and Guntram Hazod, in cooperation with Tsering Gyalbo, Rulers on the Celestial Plain, Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet: A Study of Tshal Gung-thang. The book also contains reproductions of two medieval Tibetan Manuscripts.
 

The ruins of the monastery of Sang-phu Ne'u-thog (founded in 1073) in sKyid-shod, Central Tibet. Photo: Google Earth 2006
 
 
 
 Hazod, Guntram und Per K. Sørensen (2007, in print): Rulers on the Celestial Plain. Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet. A Study of Tshal Gung-thang. ix + approximately 970 pages, with 300 illustrations: maps, photographs, line drawings.
 
 		 
     
 
 

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Notice: We want to inform you that the research program will come to an end on the 31st of March 2007. Since that time this homepage will not be updated anymore.